Lost and Found
Today I am going to share something personal and painful. I don't like to write about it. I don't like to even THINK about it. And yet, in going through this experience, everything worked out for the Highest Good. Would I do it again? I hope there would be a less painful alternative...but if there wasn't I would do it all over again.
"Things Change!"
All through residency, I was afraid of one thing--Private Practice.
This is because the new hires have to take all the call for the senior partners, and work their way 'up' the internal ladder to become senior partner after paying their dues.
I wanted to enjoy life, to start a family. I started medical school at twenty-eight, and was thirty-eight by the time I passed all my boards. Life is short, I figured, and I scaled way back, and worked only part-time at the academic center where I trained, three days a week.
At the same time, I also worked in private practice for a 'nice woman', from Iraq, who I met at an ASA Conference (American Society of Anesthesiologists) who lived in my area, the other two days a week. She took money from me, lots of it, while smiling and I didn't have a clue. And also she did something not so good with Medicare payments, a form of fee splitting that wasn't exactly kosher. The others who worked for her and I decided to go someplace else. I was shocked and disappointed that the 'partnership payment' of one hundred dollars a fertility clinic case was really going to her pocket, nothing more, and the two percent 'facility fee' at the surgery center was going to the pocket of the lead technician who got fired over that.
When I became a mother for the first time, I took full-time hearts call (one night in three), worked part-time (three days a week) and did plastics by the beach on Tuesdays. I sold all of my regular call to a mom who had a boy eight months older than mine, and enjoyed some of the best years of my life. I was happy.
But the department wasn't, there were some changes. Some lawsuits. And a request for a new department chair, who came into the picture in late 2008.
He was evil personified, and no matter what I did, he didn't like me. And his wife was even more unpleasant than him.
Would you like an example? The Christmas party was outdoors, in winter, in a bad part of town, and he wrote up another cardiac anesthesiologist who is gay for 'her lewd dancing' as sexual harassment. The woman couldn't DANCE--she danced like a white girl with a complete lack of rhythm!--and she got written up and had to take a course to keep her job.
The new chair, prior to the family moving out from the east coast, promised his daughters a dog. The wife came to the same Christmas Party. I smiled and asked her about the dog? She glared at me and like an ice queen said, 'I told them it was either the dog or me.'
Everyone in the department started to drink, even the sweet Korean doc who taught me OB anesthesia.
Soon it became like an episode of Survivor.
My closest friends turned on me, and became best friends with each other. One had the nerve to ask me, poor compared to the rest, 'how are your investments?' Except for my retirement, I didn't HAVE any investments! But I knew they knew something I did not.
They wanted me to hire a nanny and not take my son to a church preschool near work. They wanted me to show up earlier. They let other people line up (place invasive monitoring) the heart patients close to the heart room--mine were the farthest away, and they would clock us with clipboards and walking around...I cried at work when they told me I couldn't bring my son into the changing room at four years old (a night shift worker took him to school, and she also stayed rent-free at my house to sleep days). Someone complained.
My life was a living hell, and there was nothing I could do to save it.
I had an appointment for April 30 to meet with the new chair. As I drove to his office, the doc who had an appointment before mine was crossing the street to go back to the hospital. He made a gesture like someone slit his throat. I knew.
When I got up, I heard hysterical laughing in the chair's office with his vice-chair--who wasn't even a doctor. I came in, I sat. They handed me a letter to read 'we are not renewing your contract' and he blithely said, 'things change!'
Six docs were let go in one day from the department. And the one whose throat was 'slit,' and I were both seven and a half years--not vested--and the department stole all we had in the retirement system that wasn't our own account but from the employer.
One doc sued for wrongful termination, and won. (A journal club I had organized led to both of us being let go--he bought up an article where our chair had plagiarized the data in February of that year). And another who was wrongly accused of pre-filling out his anesthesia record sued and won his lawsuit against the department too.
The Pain
My father was dying from interstitial lung disease and was on palliative care. The stress of my unemployment was not good for him. He worried night and day on how I would provide for myself and my son. Every day, instead of visiting Dad, which I wanted to do very much, I would go to the preschool--it was a big church nearby--and they gave me a scholarship for half the tuition because I had no work. I had packed up my things from the office, turned in my badge immediately after that meeting with the Chair, and survived with only a small fraction of my salary for two more months. It was a sixty day notification per academic rules...
I went to the gym. I hung out at Starbucks. I made lists and called. But mostly I cried. There was a beautiful room that Anthony's former preschool teacher showed me. It had a big marble statue of Jesus in it. And I would bawl at his feet, literally, on my stomach, because I didn't know what to do.
I never heard a peep from that statue. Or from my guides. I think Blessed Mother gave me nice messages--but I was beyond that. I could barely function.
A friend heard of my plight. Although I had gotten work at a local hospital that does trauma, it wasn't well respected, and the anesthesia team hadn't gotten the stipend from the hospital for six months.
His hospital was starting a heart program, and they recruited me. I had to do OB until the program started, but my CV (an academic doctors resume is a Curriculum Vitale) was the best the state regulators had ever seen...
Panicked, I also worked nights at the local VA as an ICU nocturnist. I was an attending, and this was like what a resident would do. It was a step down from my old work as an attending anesthesiologist. But the one who sued the chairman and won, was one of my professors, and had offered me the job. I took it just in case another job blew up in my face. My friend would relieve me on my OB call in time for me to drive to my other job.
Long story short, I more than doubled my income.
Full-time private practice pays much better than part-time academics...but I was over worked, tired, and afraid, for more than a year. My first vacation was a three day cruise to Ensenada with my family in July of 2010, more than fourteen months after I started.
You Are Vietnamese On The Inside
Before I could get credentialed for the hospital I am at now, there was a woman who was out with breast cancer at a surgery center in a local Asian community. My first day at work there was the day after my father died at eight p.m. the night before.
I couldn't tell a soul what had happened on my first day. But later, I was excused to go to the funeral that week.
This became the best place for me to heal. And we had Vietnamese food, all we could ask for, every day, for breakfast and lunch. Pho has always been my comfort food...
The owner took me aside, after learning how I had been treated at my old work, and said, in his thick accent and little owlish glasses, 'No one will make you cry here.'
Out Of The Frying Pan
The heart room didn't consult anesthesia in the building phase. They had no technician, no cart, no drugs...everything had to go from scratch. They assumed I would know how to build and stock an anesthesia cart. I didn't. That's the work of an anesthesia tech. It was expected for me to stock and clean and maintain all of the anesthesia equipment like a tech even though I was a doc.
They didn't start cases at seven-thirty like the main O.R. They wanted me to be in the O.R. at six-thirty, and lined and asleep by seven and to cut at eight. But there was no anesthesia tech. This is unheard of in a cardiac anesthesia program! The nurses helped me. And I got super nervous because I was on a whole other FLOOR than the main O.R. and there wasn't another anesthesiologist in sight! So I had a terrible time getting the lines in.
There was no ultrasound guidance for the central lines.
When I asked for a bronchoscope for a double-lumen tube case, the nurse in charge of everything brought me the Glide Scope from the E.R. I had a fit! I asked for something long and skinny and black, and they gave me a video laryngoscope !!! And I couldn't' borrow the bronchoscope from the O.R. because it was a 'different cost center'.
This O.R. was hostile. (everyone who has ever gone to it has left except for the one cardiac guy working there now...who is a saint).
I hit an all time low.
I reached out to Tim Braun. I saw his face on a flyer sent by email from a local metaphysical store and started bawling. I knew he would help me find my way. He is a medium.
I went to him, like, 'Dude? What am I to do with my psychic gift?' And he was like, 'Wow! you ARE getting the same info I am--you ARE psychic!'
It was like coming out of the closet.
He sent me to Anne, his teacher, Anne Reith.
When I came back from the cruise my boss told me things 'weren't working out in the heart room--they don't like you' and 'you would have been fired but they love you in OB'.
The Hail Mary Pass Every Single Day
I hired a neighbor to be my nanny. I brought my son to a local preschool. And my neighbor took him to school every morning. If I needed him picked up, she picked him up. If I needed overnight, she did that too.
I worked nights on OB, the VA, and also went to psychic development classes. Psychic development circle was the hardest, because we had to be there exactly at starting time when our guides showed up.
I don't know how I did it. Really, I don't. At a mediumship lecture, I was told by my medical guide through a medium that if I didn't slow down I would get sick.
I did.
When I went to Oahu with my family in April of 2012, two years later--I had stopped the VA but that's it--when I attuned my sister to Reiki One, and she practiced on me, she 'felt something' in my abdomen, on the lower left.
I shrugged it off.
It was a grapefruit-sized fibroid. You should have seen the face my doc made during my annual exam when he found it. The stable one I'd had for years had tripled in size!
So I had surgery.
I had four weeks off.
That's when I made my Doctors With Reiki page on Facebook, and my Twitter. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be here online for you--I'd only be blogging but no one would ever know about it.
Turn It Around
- The evil chairman did me the best favor of my life by getting me OUT of that work environment.
- The asian surgery center was only two exits away from my old preschool, and the hours were such I could drop off and pick up my son every day. There were no weekends or holidays.
- I grew to love everyone there like family, and I still do. They were amazing people there.
- There is no way I ever could have taken Psychic Development classes if I had stayed in that heart room where I work, even though I started the program there.
- I am in a much better place here and now than I was five years ago.
- I am doing the work as a healer I believe I was put on this earth to do, but had no idea before--except for one thing--I had always wanted to be like Mark Twain, and write about my experiences when I was older...and I do more than that now!
In loss, there is pain, confusion, and discomfort on a human ability to process the grief.
In a 'soul perspective', loss is sometimes the only way to put you into a better place...where you need to be and people need YOU--your skills, your heart, your smile, your courage, your faith, your energy...
Don't be afraid to ask for nurturing, warmth, love and compassion from your guides and fellow travelers in life, as you experience change...be good to yourself, and allow yourself time to grieve the loss as you adjust to be open to receiving the new.
Renewal
When I had my neurosurgery in 1990, I realized that there are two things in life--'Life Death and Forever' and 'Everything Else'.
I never wanted to waste another minute of my life on 'Everything Else'.
I changed my life. I left my first husband, and went to medical school.
I thought that was IT. That was what God had wanted for me.
This morning, I did a one hour Skype session with the alternate 'winner' for the four-thousand 'likes' on Facebook healing I offered.
It was amazing. To have the technology to video conference halfway around the globe, and to bring in a Twin Flame to someone in dire need of His love, and also a bit of my Ross came through for her, too.
I never in a million years would have dreamed any of this is possible!
At the start of my Reiki Training, my goals were simple--to teach Reiki to doctors and nurses and anyone else in the hospital who shared an interest.
I've done that. I had wanted to go through the route of journal articles and lectures at anesthesia conferences...
It didn't happen. Instead, it was like, 'No more classes for you Carla!' and my schedule got so bad, and my boy so lonesome for me, I had to quit! I am just like two units shy of my certification as a Psychic, a Healer, and a Medium. Although I wish I could get honorary ones by my 'extra credit' here, I realize that there is no way I can ever have a teacher's name on my work....it's from Source.
Today's recipient of my healing said something that struck me, 'Do you realized how very blessed you are to have the telephone to Source?'
I hadn't.
I thought everyone is like that.
One day, soon, everyone WILL be like this! But until then--I will send healings to you with Ross, every single day, and blog as best as I can.
My hospital is open to me, and to my gifts. One of my favorite PACU nurses calls me, openly, 'Reeky-Doc' because her way to pronounce Reiki rhymes with 'leaky'...her niece knows who I am, online, and is astonished that her aunt knows and works with me. This nurse showed me her scar from carpal tunnel, and brags to everyone how I sent distance Reiki to her, and she barely has a scar she healed so well.
Medicine is changing from the inside out. I am but one of many who are on the front lines.
And hopefully, all of society shall change from the inside out too....
Heaven is coming to Earth. And you who read these words have the front row seats!
Ross
Carla has done a fine job of showing her story. She loves you. This is why she revisits the past--only to help you get a 'leg up' on what is happening to you.
To help you through the changes, both of us offer you an open hand...and a bracelet! Not that I wish to sell you anything but these bracelets really do help to smooth out the assimilation of the energy upgrades into your body with the Ascension process.
I want to talk. (he squats down as if to tell an important story)
When I was alive, I had my teaching. Many people followed me, because of my work. And the one who taught me my most needed lesson--it WAS the most painful thing I have ever experienced and I have experienced more pain than most--writes for you these words, both mine and hers.
By separating from me, in her heart, and for having me helpless to save her for incarnation after incarnation, watching her self-destroy and refuse to talk to me, made me think I was going to lose my soul in the process.
What Carla, my Twin and my heart's desire, taught me is that (he is getting emotional...ed)...is that...my love for her is the most important thing in existence, more than anything I ever could have done, or taught, or created, or built with my hands, or destroyed. It was her love for me that I TOOK FOR GRANTED while I was in the Matrix living in the Illusion with her--was the worst mistake I have made in all of my incarnations.
I have her here now, close to my heart, after what seemed like forever.
I give thanks for the lesson she taught me--to value the feminine, as an equal partner to myself, in every way--and for the balance that we create when we are together, in body and spirit, in heart and mind, as ONE.
Mind you, as Twins, we do not think alike, or even have the same interests! But what is different now is I appreciate Carla, for what she brings to the relationship, that is irreplaceable. And Carla, in her trust she now has open to me--which I worked a long time to get--is back to where she should have been so many lifetimes ago...it is my greatest accomplishment...to save her Life...it is my own who has been saved in the process!
So no matter how difficult your challenge--YOU SHALL OVERCOME IT! You have all the Company of Heaven to help you find your way. Be like Carla--lie on your belly and howl in fright and pain...you will find your way, at the perfect time, and the perfect place (he embraces me now--ed).
Carla is now ninety-percent HOME. Soon I will take her with me--you shall have the same contact with her after she goes as you do now! Do not fret. We are going to be a part of your lives for a long time! A very long time!
Remember, 'Ross? Is that YOU with all your messages again for us? AGAIN?' That is the future! I promise this.
Until then, you are a miracle, a masterpiece, and creation of joy and love and laughter like there has never been nor ever will be duplicated in all of eternity...
Remember this.
Aloha and Mahalos,
Namaste,
Peace,
Ross and Carla
your brother and sister in the Light
